This Week’s Awards - 16/10

Bouquets & Brickbats

Jon Allen16th Oct 2014

Illustrations by Bill Sanderson & Dave Hopkins @phosphorart.com

Bouquets

The Best Soundtrack Award goes to…. Cue a fanfare for Rainey Kelly’s TV work for M&S – fashion AND food. Get music for a commercial wrong, and it grates on the nerves, putting you off the product every time the first notes are played. No danger of that happening here. Ed Sheeran’s ‘Sing’ used with the female fashion (the actual styles don’t look that much to me – but my fussiest contact in the target audience is impressed enough) is an earworm – but one which doesn’t annoy most people. For the beautifully shot food porn, they chose an instrumental version of Rather Be by Clean Bandit. When either commercial comes on and I’ve got my back to the TV, the music instantly flags up M&S. Spend a few minutes online reading comments made by people who have obviously googled the music and you’ll see what a positive impact the choices have had.

Brickbats

A rancid cake fashioned to look like a felled forest to… Lakeland, purveyors of culinary etc - and distributors of junk mail. Arriving less than a week after the perfectly-timed mega catalogue which I haven’t had time to look at. Surely Lakeland, along with other established traditional mail order companies who act similarly, are chucking away revenue and eating into margins by bombarding the wrong people. And looking like bad ol' junk mailers.

A Special Photography Brickbat... I met a third Suchet brother once – not the acting Poirot, nor the newsreader cum Classic fm DJ – and he was a delightful chap. If DJ Suchet is as charming as his brother, something must have gone horribly wrong on this shoot. He looks like his patience is all but gone. I can almost hear him saying through clenched teeth: “Will dat loddy art director make u' his loddy ind, my snile has loody rozen.” I have never seen a smile more rictus. If this is the best shot, what the hell are the others like?

Previous Awards

Bouquets

A special bouquet modelled out of cake to Lakeland, purveyors of culinary and household gadgets. With PERFECT timing, their hefty catalogue – packed, like all good mail order books with things you never realised you needed – crashed through the letter box the morning after the evening The Great British Bake Off Final was televised. The contest culminated in a Showstopper. This cover is brilliantly elegant – and no permission needed from the Beeb! (And they were wise too to only feature Mary Berry’s products well into the catalogue.)

Brickbats

The Award of a rusty spinning top goes to the Labour Party spokesman who on BBC 1’s live coverage of the Heywood and Middleton By Election result kept on repeating robotically: ‘We increased our share of the vote.’ They did – but by a pathetic 1% compared to UKIP’s massive hike. The LibDems and Tories lost loads (with some Libdems probably voting Labour tactically.) The automaton might have sounded almost in touch – and scored political points - if he’d simply said "Our share of the vote didn’t go down"... and the presenter might have said "Your share actually went up"...